Dharmendra’s first wife Prakash was ‘radiantly handsome, extraordinary homemaker,’ recalls biographer: ‘Improbable as it sounds, she was looking for a rishta for step-daughter Esha Deol’

In the same book, the author quoted veteran journalist Bharathi S Pradhan as she spoke about the time when she spotted Prakash at the airport but as she approached to talk to her, she “disappeared.” “Dharam was very hospitable and yet there was a subtle Lakshman rekha. We could not get close to his wife or daughters. We never crossed borders, we accepted them. However nice and friendly he was. Once I saw her sitting at the airport, and when I smiled at her, she smiled back. When I came back, she had disappeared, and he said ‘Oh, she was wary because you are there’.”

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Esha married Bharat in 2012 and they stayed married for 12 years. While Prakash offered to find a groom for Esha, it was noted at the time of her wedding that no one from Prakash’s side of the family attended the wedding. Prakash, Sunny, Bobby were all absent from the wedding. Such has been the case at all the weddings in the Deol household. So much so that at Sunny Deol’s son Karan Deol’s wedding in 2023, Hema and her daughters were not in attendance.

Esha had previously confessed that she met Prakash only once when she had to visit her house to meet her uncle, Dharmendra’s brother, as he was very sick. “I touched her feet and she left after blessing me,” she shared in the book Hema Malini: Beyond The Dream Girl. In the same book, she shared that she was in fourth standard when she learnt that her father had another family. “That was when I understood that my mother had married someone who was already married to another lady and that they also had a family. But frankly speaking, I never felt bad about it. Till today, I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. And I give full credit to my parents for not making us ever feel uncomfortable,” she said.

Talking about Prakash, Hema has shared that she never met her. “Though I have never spoken about Prakash, I respect her a lot. Even my daughters respect Dharamji’s family. The world wants to know about my life in detail, but that is not for others to know. It’s no one’s business,” she shared in the same book.